Broadcasters send reporters into the wind again.

I'm doubtful that sending a reporter down to the beach just to prove that there is a hell of a gale out there does anything to improve the quality of the reporting. Yes, we need to see the extent of damage, but it would also be useful to know what to do. Where is the Google crisis map for this region? Something like this:  https://google.org/crisismap/2013-boulder-floods. We may have built storm surge barriers, but in Europe we haven't got a communications plan anything like the Australians or the US. If I was one of the people evacuated from my home in Great Yarmouth this evening, I would have expected a little more information that offered by the BBC website.

Weather forecast on BBC website for Great Yarmouth. I expected more for what has been described as the worse storm in 60 years

In the Netherlands, we have a website called crisis.nl. The weather bureaux in Holland has been talking about a code red weather alert all day. Would it be worth opening crisis.nl to send concerned citizens in the right direction? Er no....

So who really cares?

 Let me repost some thoughts I shared at the start of the year.

January 2013 was an important anniversary. It was 60 years since devastating floods hit the Netherlands and the East Coast of the UK. I'm heard all kinds of tributes on local media and BBC's Radio 4 Today programme. There's also a radio documentary below about the flooding, which I made 20 years ago about the 1953 floods.

Storm Surge Barrier Proposal (courtesy Arcardis)

Above is an artist's impression supplied by the Dutch engineering firm of Arcadis. They are proposing to build a barrier in the Verrazano Narrows between New York's Brooklyn borough and Staten Island, shielding the Upper New York Bay. This barrier would be supplemented by two smaller barriers, one between Staten Island and New Jersey and the other on the East River. Much of the vast destruction wreaked by the storm surge in New York this past week with Superstorm Sandy could have been prevented or reduced with a sea barrier of the type that protects major cities in Europe. But of course it comes with a multi-billion dollar price tag. How do we know? Because Holland was flooded in 1953 and one of the lessons learned was that storm surge barriers were needed to protect against very high tides.

Oosterscheldekering (in English: Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier)

Most people I meet don't realise there are several of these barriers. This was the most expensive to build. The nine kilometre-long Oosterscheldekering (kering means barrier) which was initially designed, and partly built, as a closed dam. But after public protest (especially from the fishing industry) huge sluice-gate-type doors were installed in the remaining four kilometres. These doors are normally open, but can be closed under adverse weather conditions. In this way the salt water marine life behind the dam is preserved and fishing can continue, while the land behind the dam is safe from the water. But this type of construction doesn't allow ships to pass. So for New York (and other large cities near the sea like Rio, Tokyo etc), a different design would be needed.  

The Maeslantkering is a storm surge barrier on the imaginary dividing line between the Nieuwe Waterweg waterway located at Hoek van Holland and the river the Scheurlocated along the cities of Maassluis and Vlaardingen up to the confluence of the rivers Oude Maas and Nieuwe Maas, Netherlands). 

Model of Maeslantkering protecting Rotterdam

But what about the costs? 

Amongst others, The New York Observer wrote about that this week. The costs are obviously astronomical. It was US$4 billion to build the sea gate in the Netherlands, known as Maeslantkering, or the Maelstrom Barrier, when was completed in 1997. While "twice the size of the Eiffel Tower" sounds big, the Verrazano Narrows is more than three times as wide as the Rhine span for the barrier in the Netherlands, and that's before the two other gates are constructed. The cost could easily surpass $10 billion, likely making this kind of damming gates the most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken in the USA. This is not simply a Dutch tradition. Following the same North Sea Floods of 1953, the British built a flood barrier in the Thames. It did not open until 1984, at a cost of £534 million, which would be £1.4 billion today, or $2.25 billion.

Holland 1953

New York 2012

Have we learned anything?

Frankly, there are still some gaps.

On 4 October 1986 Queen Beatrix officially opened the  Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier by saying the words: De stormvloedkering is gesloten. De Deltawerken zijn voltooid. Zeeland is veilig. (The flood barrier is closed. The Delta Works are completed. Zealand is safe.)

I made a radio documentary for Radio Netherlands in 1993 looking back at the floods in the Netherlands in the winter of 1953 and what had happened since. It contains many broadcast extracts from broadcasters that used the radio station's facilities to broadcast to the US. UK listeners may recognise the voice of Brian Matthew who worked for Radio Netherlands in the 1950's and then went on to a career at BBC Radio 2. It's on line (for free) if you want to listen again. Or you can click the player below.


Not playing? Check out the episode here!

But listening to that radio documentary again this week, there was a point which struck me which neither the US or the Netherlands have yet tackled. One of the problems in 1953 was that Dutch villages had few phones, so no-one knew about the pending disaster. How do you communicate information before, during and after such a terrible natural disaster? Media tend to fall into the trap of just reporting it - we see the usual reporters out in the wind. 

This doesn't convey much useful information, often sending out a false message of security. ("It can't be that bad if they're out with a camera crew"). Where the media totally fails is providing an accurate overview of what happened. The Dutch have spent billions on building infrastructure. But virtually nothing on a cross-media communications plan should huge storms or disasters come this way. And remember that flooding may  well come from rivers in Germany rather than the North Sea.

Better Role Models

In that respect, I think the Australians and New Zealanders are way ahead of us. Take the example of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation working with emergency services as well as Google Maps to provide up to date maps of what's still working - where can I charge my phone? Where is the safe drinking water? Which shelters are open and how do I get there? Which transport services are still running? All this means the use of maps, not announcers reading out lists.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-17/natural-disasters-leave-72-million-displaced/4318018

 It also requires the kind of local detail which demand something better than a "broadcast TV" solution. I'm guessing it's going to be a hybrid solution - a mix of broadcast, mobile and web. And, especially in coastal areas or places where flooding is likely, those services need to be equally reliable. I note in New York that the broadcast services were less affected than the cell towers and Internet providers. But those who argue that we should go back to relying more on broadcast networks ignore the fact that many people no-longer get their information from over the air broadcast networks - or if they do, that content is being delivered over IP technology to tablets, phones, etc. 

Resilient Communities

I encourage others to look into the work of US writer John Robb who has written a lot about the threats we face - and what we can do about it. His latest project is called Resilient Communities and offers practical advice on what you can do both prepare and recover. He also summarised the impact of the storm - the tides were higher than predicted - thank goodness there was actually less rain. I liked the recent post on power for instance. John made me realize that my energy provider in the Netherlands doesn't map anything. Their page of outages is a long list of problems. If this were an emergency I would be interested in a map showing where power were still available - exactly the opposite. Likewise, the water company focuses on what's not working, rather than mapping what supplies are safe. I signed up for John's new project which develops Resilient Strategies and publishes them. Much better value than I have seen from the commercial press. I also like the unofficial Google Maps blog called MapsMania showing what others have done to make intelligent maps. 

In the Netherlands, the public network Radio 1 is designated as the network to go for information in case of a natural disaster. And one of the 13 provincial radio stations is the place to go if the emergency is regional. Dutch Government websites are poor in explaining. There is nothing in English on their websites for visitors staying in the Netherlands or people who work for international companies but who don't understand Dutch. The Dutch language website refer people to a frequency list (wow!) and a report of a congress in 2002. There is a website in Dutch called Crisis.NL. But, unlike sites elsewhere in the world that use such a site to help you prepare, this site is closed until it's needed. There is a link to another site with tips, but it points out that most of it is in Dutch. Can you read this on a mobile? With difficulty.

Conclusion? 

We have some brilliant water barriers. And the best water engineers in the universe. But, in the Netherlands, we don't have a public communications plan. We have websites with PDF brochures. Few know they are there. And they are not easily accessible for non Dutch speakers. And that scares the hell out of me. 

Doing something like this to correct the problem in your own community? Would be interested to find out more. I recall the great work done in New Zealand by volunteers at community radio stations following their earthquake.

The Earth Outside My Window

Jim Cutler shared this link to the spectacular 4K video montage of time lapse from NASA. SpaceX should do a deal with GoPro to get 4K imagery from their Falcon 9 launcher. The tweet from Elon Musk yesterday didn't really do justice to the project. Turn down the lights, crank up the volume and make sure to watch in full screen with the best possible quality your connection will manage. What are we seeing? Phil Plait has analysed the shots for us.

David Peterson has only two uploads on his YouTube channel. But both are spectacular. And so is the music he selected. Sounds familiar.




And then you realise that Two Steps From Hell are making so much of the epic soundtracks coming out of Hollywood. I recall watching the trailer for Anna Karenina....




and then remembering the same music was on the 4K showreel with stunning shots of San Francisco.

Teton Gravity Research Aerial Reel - The Bay Area in 4K from Teton Gravity Research on Vimeo.

Salesforce Tackles the Problem Prize - Limits the Damage

My colleague Richard Kastelein who has organised some great hackathon bootcamps this year alerted me to a problem outcome at the Salesforce1 Hackathon last month. Controversy started when the jury decided to award 1 million dollars in prize money to a startup called Upshot, for building an app that generates mobile reports for sales people. The goal is to develop apps using the Salesforce customer relationship management platform. 4500 developers accepted the challenge. The problem was that Upshot had demoed at least some aspects of the app at a gathering months ago. So did they really hack the code at the hackathon or plug in something they made earlier? 

Rather than hide away, Salesforce grabbed the problem head on. They decided that Upshot still qualified for the competition, but decided that the runner up, Healthcare-Love should get USD$1 million too instead of the 50,000 awarded on the night in question. 

From the Salesforce Blog: Let’s address the biggest questions we heard from the community:

Did the winning team break the rules?

• The internal audit team found that the app submitted by Upshot, the winning team, adhered to the rules.
• UpShot as a team was eligible under the rules of the hackathon.  One of the members was a former salesforce.com employee, but based on his departure date from the company, he was eligible.
• We reviewed the source code of Upshot’s submission.  It showed that Upshot started with some existing code, but the mobile app was created within the contest window and a majority of the submission was new code created during that time.
• While the Upshot mobile app used some pre-existing code, this did not violate the rules.  Use of pre-existing code was allowable as long as the code didn’t comprise the majority of the app and didn’t violate any third party’s rights.  Our internal review determined that Upshot’s mobile app was created during the hackathon and met these criteria.

Was the Healthcare.love team eligible to participate?

• We heard a concern raised about the participation of the Healthcare.love team because they are employed by a company in which salesforce.com holds a small equity stake.  We determined that the team was eligible to participate because such investment is immaterial and salesforce.com has no ability to control the referenced company. As a result, it is not a “salesforce.com-related” entity under the rules.

Were the rules clear to everyone?

• We should have been more clear to teams and to the final round judges about the use of pre-existing code. This is complicated because essentially every app uses pre-existing code, APIs and/or libraries.  Our intention all along was that to qualify for submission, the use of existing code in the app was ok so long as that code didn’t violate any third party’s rights and didn’t comprise a majority of the app.  In other words, a mobile app previously created for another purpose would not qualify.  We didn’t do a good enough job explaining to final round judges how to take into account the use of pre-existing code.  We didn’t get this right.  We should have been clearer.  We don’t know whether this would have changed the outcome of the final round of judging or not.

I'm sure that a lot of lessons have been learned to make things clearer in the future. But it was also a good outcome for everyone. Time to move on. We need more events that create really useful results 

SpaceX Success for Falcon & SES satellite.

View of Earth from upper stage rear view camera at 8,000 miles pic.twitter.com/V4tdMUA48X
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 4, 2013

Congrats to the SpaceX crew for putting a new Astra satellite safely into Earth orbit. I notice the mainstream media seemed to highlight the fact that two previous launches of the Falcon-9 were cancelled. As if that never happened to NASA or ESA? I was far more interested in seeing the narrative unfold, from the test firings earlier this year and explanation by Elon Musk about why this business is so difficult - It is all about the weight. Earth's gravity means you need enormous power to escape!

SES says it has three more SpaceX/Falcon 9 boosters under contract.

SES-8 features up to 33 Ku-band transponders (36 MHz equivalent). SES-8 is authorized by The Netherlands and will be co-located with NSS-6 at the orbital location of 95 degrees East to provide growth capacity over Asia-Pacific. The spacecraft's high performance beams will support the rapidly growing markets in South Asia and Indo-China, as well as provide expansion capacity for DTH [direct-to-home TV], VSAT [very small aperture terminal] and government applications.

Romain Bausch, president and CEO of SES said: "We congratulate the SpaceX team for the success of a challenging launch campaign and our longstanding supplier Orbital for innovating with us in exploring new paths to orbit while delivering a brand-new, state-of-the-art satellite for Asia. Our customers are looking forward to the new capacity, and we are delighted that SES, in collaboration with SpaceX and Orbital, is all set to deliver following today's successful launch. Through the co-location with NSS-6 at 95 degrees East, SES-8 will not only provide incremental high performance capacity, notably for DTH services, it will also create greater reliability and additional security for customers. The SES-8 satellite will significantly contribute to SES's growing presence in Asia-Pacific."

Choices for 2014 - Deutsche Welle or Techcrunch?

Budgets are tight. Where to find meaningful conversations in 2014? What's this in the inbox. An invitation to attend the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn next year.

Reminds me of a blogpost I wrote back in May to explain why I decided not to attend this year.

Are forums still working? 

So what's the problem?

The format is EXACTLY the same every year - think of a general theme, word them as challenges, send out invitations, give a few sponsors (including relevant politicians) a platform, fill the conference centre in the former parliament building in Bonn, have a party on the boat to Linz am Rhein. Repeat until someone complains or the money runs out.

Sadly, if I look at next years program, I'm not optimistic that the message from the audience is getting through to the organisers. I don't need to go to Bonn for more information. Yet that's exactly what is on offer in the plenary sessions. Lectures - totally one way. I call them bungee speakers - "Hello, here is my keynote, we'll take a few questions, have to dash, enjoy your conference". There's no sustainable conversation, so there's really no point. People promise to follow-up. And rarely do.

ahh! panel sessions

The Bonn conference centre is great for plenaries. It's less than great for intimate group discussions. Rooms are dark, overcrowded and the format is the inevitable panel discussions. There are presentations again. May be a bit of debate. Seldom any concrete action points and lessons to take away. And then it's time for coffee. I used to tape the sessions incase. Then I realised I was wasting my time.

Re;publika. Europe's largest social media conversation?

The danger is that others are beating the broadcasters at their own game of building conversations. In Berlin, at Techcrunch Disrupt, I saw a conference, a debate, a marketplace, and many new ideas to inspire. It was all about hands on participation. Total involvement. Same at Re: publika in May.

Berlin is interaction with the exponential future. Bonn is clearly wallowing in the past. What a missed opportunity. Wonder if they will consider changing it?

So if budgets are tight, I know where I recommend people to spend their time. Agree?

Techcrunch Europe

p.s. Just saw some events that DW organised in Niger to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their Hausa service to West Africa. These were discussion driven, audience inclusive and had clear focus. Why can't they do the same in Bonn?

Thoughts on Singularity University - The Turbo Acclerator

In late November posters went up in the Amsterdam Carre theatre - Peter Diamandis was coming to town, for one afternoon performance only. So what was all that about?   I went along to investigate. 

I have seen the first executive director of Singularity University Salim Ismail speak at a Mobile Monday event in 2009 in Amsterdam. I recall that Salim discussed the exponential changes happening in the world and their plans to help companies that planned to change the lives of a billion people. It's a pity that he seems to have stopped blogging since Steve Jobs passed away. His videos are now behind a paywall on the Singularity Hub (It is not an expensive firewall - 48 Euros a year)

The invite to this event came from Deloitte, one of the big four accounting firms on the planet, and Yuri van Geest, who is both a Singularity Alumnus as well as the driving force behind Singularity University in the Netherlands. 

Around 1000 of us sat in the Carre theatre. The lights went down and Business News Radio host Rens de Jong introduced a succession of speakers. Wasilli Bertoen of the Deloitte Center for the Edge chatted with his US colleague John Hagel, explaining that innovation usually happens at the edge of larger institutions first. Agree with everything he said.

David Roberts on Disruptive Innovation

David Roberts, who directs the Graduate Studies Program at the Singularity University HQ in California was next. A former US military intelligence officer, Roberts began with a story about visiting Caernarfon Castle in North-West Wales as a young boy growing up in Europe. That instilled a fascination with the technology of castles. If you lived inside the castle you had access to clean water, food, health care (such as it was), education and security. If you lived a day's walk from the castle you had nothing. 

Castles were easily overcome - not by breaking through the defences. But by conquering those who lived around the castle and just waiting. Caernafon was one of the few fortifications who realised that by extending the city walls to include the rest of the town, they were sharing technology with citizens and at the same time building a much stronger defence against distant enemies. Roberts then drew the analogy that fortresses still exist today to show that wall of global grand challenges still exist across the world. Roberts believes the only way to break down these barriers is through sharing disruptive technology. 

He gave the example of his father who developed rheumatic fever while training to run the four minute mile. When told he could never run competitively again, he devoted the rest of his life to studying drugs that would kill bacteria making sure that others didn't suffer from the same problem. That involved sharing disruptive ideas about infections, giving back knowledge to others.

Peter Diamandis then took to the stage with his keynote explaining why they set up this centre to help disrupt the near future, not 50 years from now, but the next decade. 

It was at this point that I started to look at SU as standing more for Start-up University rather than the often hard-to-grasp notion of Singularity.(I always understood that singularity describes the moment when a civilization changes so much that its rules and technologies are incomprehensible to previous generations; a point-of-no-return. In fact the explanation of SU seems to have shifted focus. Diamandis heads a team which I see as building a turbo-charged accelerator program. They've clearly examined what's already out there and applied their own theories of disruptive technology to high-tech education. And then multiplied every by 1000.

If there is a secret, it seems to be in the way they scour the planet for the best talent. And the business model they use to run it. Anyone can take part in the graduate courses. Either you bring US30,000 dollars for the 9 week programme, or you prove that you can bring or develop a disruptive technology that can change the lives of hundreds of millions of people. 

Bearing in mind what one Dutch MBA private college charges for their graduate MBA courses or senior management tracks (22,000 Euro) I'm sure that price has been strategically set. Given the choice of a traditional schooling in Europe or a disruptive startup experience in a NASA hangar in California, the choice for me would be clear.

The other clever invention has been the filter mechanism, reinventing award ceremonies. Here in old Europe, accounting firms, technology companies and even some cities put tens of thousands of Euros on the table as prize money. But, in many cases, these award ceremonies are more for the glorification of the organisers than as a serious catalyst for disruptive inventors. You can't do much with 50,000 Euro and a trophy. 

Diamandis started the Xprize which certainly goes a step in the right direction. Come up with a serious challenge and put up a prize of US10 million dollars or more. These large-scale, highly publicized, incentivized prize competitions are designed to stimulate investment in research and development. They trigger processes worth far more than the prize itself. They do exactly what's on the tin. And the publicity is worth 50 times the prize money. 

I noticed that Singularity is training the company's it nurtures in building powerful narratives. They seem to be tapping in to the production knowledge from Hollywood, as well as fundraising expertise from KIVA. This ends up with kickstarter and indiegogo projects which break all funding records. Like the Scanadu Scout which raised 1.6 million dollars.

Lessons Learned

For me, the SU event was an eye-opener, both in terms of how far SU has built a turbo accelerator for young companies and the influence it is having of building company narratives on crowd-funding sites. 

The difference is that in SFO, storytelling is seen as an investment. 

In the Netherlands we too often regard “making the video” as a necessary PR expense. We confuse pitching with building a company narrative. The problem with our European firework displays of talent is that the impact fizzles out the day after. There has to be a better way. Learning from the example of Singularity University would be a great start. 

Who wants to join?

The Madness of Technical Public Relations

In the exciting world of public relations, the death of the press release has recently been discussed again. This time it was a UK government executive, Alex Aiken, who argued that press officers should become content producers and realise that tweets, infographics or videos may be a more relevant method of disseminating a message. 

That of course is a clever strategy if you want to bury the news, making it difficult for journalists to find the overview after the event as the original story is fragmented all over the place. I'll come back to this in a future post.

But this talk of press releases reminds me of an excellent article in the Silicon Valley Watcher about the author's wish that the press release would die. It is not new. Tom Foremski wrote it in February 2006. Yet in my circles, nothing has happened in over 7 years. I quote: 

Press releases are nearly useless. They typically start with a tremendous amount of top-spin, they contain pat-on-the-back phrases and meaningless quotes. Often they will contain quotes from C-level executives praising their customer focus. They often contain praise from analysts, (who are almost always paid or have a customer relationship.) And so on...

Press releases are created by committees, edited by lawyers, and then sent out at great expense through Businesswire or PRnewswire to reach the digital and physical trash bins of tens of thousands of journalists.

This madness has to end. 

The press room on the last day of ISE Europe 2013. All this paper will be dumped in a few hours time

Unfortunately, this madness is still going on. Let me explain.

Part of my work involves writing and researching in the tech field. Several times a year I am bombarded by PR consultants who are simply interested in using me as an amplifier for their client. The problem is they have no clue about the context of the information they are trying to shift. And they have little understanding of how modern tech journalism works. The blame for this lies not only with the PR agency but also with the tech manufacturer themselves. 

Bright voices at the other end of the phone believe that success is being measured by the number of likes on a Facebook page, a retweeted Tweet, or the "column inches in a national newspaper".  No-one ever measures if the message reached potential customers and whether, as a result, they decided to follow-up.

After the latest International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam, I totalled up the number of press releases. This year I opened up a special Yahoo account to avoid PR pollution in my general inbox. I counted a total of 213 press releases related to IBC, about 80% of which were press releases written in a 1960's style that Tom complained about in 2006. I dumped them all after the show.

Amsterdam, November 30th. At the AGM of Company X, CEO Dr Y announced that sales of their new 4K projector would 140% up on expectations....blah blah. 

The sad state of Tech Public Relations

But it gets worse. The arrival of the email release is often followed up with an urgent request that I book an appointment at the show with their spokesperson because their schedule is tight and there has been huge interest. 

I know, for experience, that if I take them up on the offer, I will often be hounded again after the show to report back on how many page-views the item generated or which networks it was used on. Otherwise I will be struck off their list of "influentials".

Which is why I never respond to these mail shots and just glance at press releases. 

The material is so badly written that I would be a fool to quote from it. It is simply one source of input. I might use it to trigger an idea, that's where it ends. It is simply a shoutout, rather like a free flyer market traders keep shoving through my letterbox.

I also laugh out loud at the agencies that are still putting physical press kits together, dumping CD-ROMs in the press-office. Which century are these people living in? My Mac laptop doesn't even have a DVD-player any more. So who didn't get the memo?

Lessons Learned

As a tech writer and analyst I need a briefing not a press release. A useful backgrounder. Maybe a conversation with a specialist. 

In 2006 Tom Foremski concluded on what he needed. I would argue that much of it still applies to today.

• Deconstruct the media release into clear sections and tag the information so that as a publisher, I can pre-assemble some of the news story and make the information useful.
• Provide a brief description of what the announcement is about, but leave the spin to the journalists. The journalists will go with their own spin on the story anyway, so why bother? Cut the hype.
• Provide a page of relevant quotes from the CEO or other C-level execs.
• Provide a page of quotes from customers, if applicable.
• Provide a page of quotes from analysts, if applicable.
• Provide financial information in many different formats.
• Provide relevant links inside the press release copy to related news stories or reference sources.

Tech manufacturers, PR agencies and the tech press seriously need new guidelines of engagement. They have to understand how to build narratives in a modern world where sharing has more influence than shouting. They need to abandon paper releases immediately. 

There are examples of tech companies that are getting it. In my view, SES-Astra was the best at IBC 2013.  

I believe that the clever PR agencies will re-examine what "relations" are all about. Until then, I will be chucking out hours of someone else's work. Or trying to get photos/video off a CD-ROM.

Who is interested in a further conversation? Put me on the list.

Worn Wear - Stories of things that lasted.

Watching the nonsense of queues around Black Friday in the US. Why it is was great to discover the stories in the new film from clothing manufacturer Patagonia. Originally blacksmiths they make outdoor clothing designed to last. This film traces what happened to clothes that have been handed down. Beautifully filmed. And food for thought.

It is also interesting in light of the discussion about the difference between stories and narratives in the John Hagel entry below. Note how the music in this film gently fades away - there is no closure because the clothes have not come to the end of their lifecycle. It's a snapshot of some fantastic journeys which are not yet over.



When you have children, everything you have is theirs. But nothing they have is yours! Great line from this film, which I see has reached 100,000 people within a week.

John Hagel on the Power of Narrative & Stories 2.0

Had the opportunity to speak briefly with John Hagel III who came to the Netherlands as part of the Singularity University European Tour, visiting a seminar in Budapest and the Carre Theatre in Amsterdam as part of the homeward journey. I've followed Hagel for some years after meeting him for the first time at a SuperNova event organised by Kevin Werbach. Hagel has been studying how modern companies organise themselves and stimulate innovation. He has gathered plenty of evidence that most of the innovation happens at the edge of organisations and this was emphasised again at the Amsterdam presentation. Hagel has also recently given talks (famously without ever needing Powerpoint slides) to show that the most engaging stories are actually powerful narratives, and they are not the same thing.

Deloitte, for whom Hagel has set up the Center for the Edge, has done some excellent analysis of modern storytelling, especially in startup companies like the ones I am working with. Well down into the Deloitte website, you'll find this page which explains why the difference is so important.

At the 2013 SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, Texas, storytelling was a main theme. Over 100 discussions focused on the topic. John Hagel, director in Deloitte Consulting LLP and co-chairman of the Deloitte Center for the Edge, provided his own viewpoint, addressing an audience of nearly 600 participants in his session entitled, “Moving from story to narrative.” 

Stories are extremely powerful in terms of engaging emotion and creating memorable experiences, so I understand why stories are so intriguing and why there's so much focus on the power of story.  But I want to draw a distinction between stories…and narratives…  

One is that narratives are open-ended. They don't have resolution.  There is something that is in the process of unfolding. The end is yet to be determined.  And second, there's an invitation to all of us to participate in that narrative, to help determine what the outcome is going to be.  It's yet to be determined and it's up to you, not up to them, not up to me, up to you as to how this is going to unfold and resolve itself.

At the end of the day, if we get this right, the best way to think about the world is not seven billion mouths to feed, but seven billion minds to unleash.  That's a powerful, powerful opportunity.

Sadly, the audio on the video of the talk he gave in Austin is a struggle to listen to. But fortunately, Hagel's own blog goes into much more detail in an entry he posted last month. 

In the blogpost he is comparing narratives with passion. Here's an extended extract which I believe needs a much broader discussion in media circles: 

For me, narratives are related to, but different from, stories.  Stories are self-contained – they have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Narratives on the other hand are open-ended – the outcome is unresolved, yet to be determined.  Stories are also about me, the story-teller, or other people; they’re not about you.  In contrast, the resolution of narratives depends on the choice you make and the actions you take – you will determine the outcome and you are therefore an integral part of the narrative.

Narratives are typically about a broad domain rather than narrow slices of experience.  Think about famous social narratives like the Christian narrative, the American narrative or the Silicon Valley narrative. I’ve talked about institutional narratives like the Apple narrative or the Nike narrative – the former is about the role of technology in re-shaping our identity in society while the latter is about our ability to move from passive observers of sports to active participants in achieving exciting new levels of physical performance. 

Whatever the level of the narrative, it maps out a broad domain. And, because it calls us to make choices and take action, it helps us to move beyond simple curiosity to a commitment to make a difference.

But it does more than that, especially if it’s an opportunity based narrative.  It identifies wonderful opportunities within that domain that are available to each and every one of us if we choose to pursue them. Narratives can help orient us towards a specific domain and encourage us to make a long-term commitment to that domain because of the exciting opportunity that awaits us there. But, it’s up to us. Will we make that commitment? Will we take the actions required to participate in that opportunity?

Nurturing a questing disposition

Now, let’s look at questing dispositions.  Opportunity based narratives are not just about opportunities – they also typically frame the challenges that we’ll encounter along the way. It’s not going to be easy. To participate in the long-term opportunity, you need to take on and overcome the challenges that await you. 

The dual focus on opportunity and challenges helps to draw out the questing disposition in us. Rather than trying to avoid challenges when they occur, narratives encourage us to seek out the challenges because we won’t be able to participate in the long-term opportunity until and unless we confront and overcome the challenges that stand between us and the opportunity.

Fostering a connecting disposition

And what about the connecting disposition?  Narratives tell us that the opportunity ahead is not just for one individual; it’s available to many if not all of us. We’re not alone in this. These are not zero sum opportunities where one winner crowds out all of the others.  We can all participate in the opportunity. That message encourages us to come together to help each other over the finish line.

The dissemination of the narrative itself helps to build up a community – or dare I say a movement? – of participantswho share a common excitement about overcoming the challenges that await on the way to a big and transformative opportunity. It cultivates a larger and larger gathering of people who are united by a shared commitment to a domain and an eagerness to confront and overcome the challenges ahead. As we see more and more people who share our excitement, we are much more likely to reach out and collaborate with others in overcoming the challenges ahead.

The virtuous cycle between narrative and passion

So, opportunity- based narratives can be very powerful in catalyzing and amplifying the passion of the explorer. But there’s also a virtuous cycle here.  As participants begin to acquire this passion of the explorer, they accomplish awesome things. The stories of their amazing accomplishments begin to spread and give additional credibility to the broader narrative – look at what others have accomplished, you can do the same or even better.  Will you join us? Will you make the choices and take the actions required to pursue this exciting opportunity? The narrative is enriched by the experiences of others, spreads more broadly as others see the tangible evidence of what can be accomplished and acquires far more credibility.

Narratives as beacons

Now, not all of us will be drawn equally to any particular narrative. But narratives can become bright beacons calling us to reflect on whether the opportunity being framed is one that is meaningful to us as individuals. They are powerful antidotes to the institutions and practices we have today that discourage and ultimately squash passion in their quest for predictability, standardization and tight specification of all the actions we must take. They call us to re-connect with the passion we all felt as children and to move from the passion of the player that most of us had as kids to the passion of the explorer, motivating us to make a long-term commitment to a specific domain.

The dark side of narratives

Let me hasten to add that there’s a dark side to narratives.  So far, I’ve been talking about opportunity based narratives. There’s another kind of narrative – threat based narratives. You know the kind – we’re increasingly surrounded by them.  These narratives focus on an imminent threat – we’re under attack and if we don’t band together now, we’re all going to die or at least all the things we hold precious are going to disappear. Threat-based narratives are deeply conservative or even reactionary – they want to preserve what we have rather than explore exciting new opportunities.

These kinds of narratives tend to ignite a different form of passion – the passion of the true believer. In this kind of passion, the destination is very clear and the path we all need to take to reach that destination is tightly mapped out. In contrast, the passion of the explorer has no idea what the ultimately destination will be much less the path that we will need to pursue to reach that destination – the key is simply to get started and to craft our own path with the help of others.

Threat-based narratives and the passion of the true believer have combined throughout history to create many of the social movements that have wreaked havoc in our world. Nevertheless, even here the tight connection of narrative and passion helps to explain the power that these movements have exhibited.

Bottom line

Why does all of this matter? As I’ve explored in the Big Shift,we live in a world of mounting performance pressure – it’s not going away.  In that kind of world, we need to find ways to draw out sustained extreme performance improvement.  We simply cannot do that without deep and widespread passion, as I’ve argued elsewhere. The problem is that, based on our recent research into passion levels within the workforce, only 11% of the US workforce has passion about the work they do. If I’m right, narratives can play a key role in drawing out passion, both within each of us and within our institutions.

If we can’t find ways to re-connect with our passion as individuals, we’ll continue to feel mounting stress, become more and more marginalized and ultimately burn out and drop out.  If we can’t find ways as institutions to tap into the passion of our participants, we’ll experience diminishing performance and ultimately topple out of existence.

It doesn’t have to be that way.  Narratives can create a very different world, one where pressure evolves from a source of stress to a source of excitement, calling us to achieve even more of our potential, both as individuals and collectively. By drawing out the passion that lies dormant within most of us, narratives can help us to accomplish things that we would have never believed possible.

Jonathan's conclusions

I realize from studying John's analysis that the most powerful presentations I've witnessed lately are not stories but narratives. They are open ended, engaging and there is a clear and passionate call to action. But the cause also has to be authentic - it's not a clever marketing trick to sell me a new product. At the moment, most of my clients will look aghast if I explain I'm a craftsman in the digital narrative. Digital story-telling will have to do for now. But in fact, I'm with John Hagel all the way.  And European startups have to build much stronger narratives if they are going to get heard. For the moment, that part of the message has not yet gotten through.

Update: I have been surprised and inspired by the readership to this posting. So the narrative continues. Read on

What are all these Media Network programmes doing here?

There are very grey skies outside my window at the moment. And to think that the habour of Huizen was looking like this at start of last month. Ah well, time to process a lot of material captured when there was sun outside and sort out a number of hard disks that have been screaming for attention. I'm putting the final touches to the Media Network collection of radio programmes that traced broadcast and technology developments from 1980 - 2000. There are over 250 radio shows of 30 minutes in length sitting here. In the course of backing up some programmes, I discovered several dozen still waiting in a queue to be uploaded.

What is the value in these programmes?

I use them to check the rate of change in the broadcast industry and related media fields. I discover that we were talking about social media and actually using the web to collaborate long before Facebook, LinkedIn, and Youtube came along. But the fact that Google and Bing are indexing all this stuff makes it so much easier to find what I am looking for. I am disappointed that many people don't see the value of archives until it is often too late - they are destroyed or taken off line because of poor promotion - or there is no link made between the past and the present. Knowing how these programmes were made (low budget, high passion, and low fidelity transmission methods (shortwave radio) it is great to be able to listen back on demand. And several thousand people seem to agree with me.

Here are 10 shows which went up today. No order. And that's the fun of it. It's time travel.